Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: jeremi@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca (William Jeremiah)
Subject: Re: cheap (toy) arms?
Message-ID: <1993May31.190801.2251@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca>
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Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 19:08:01 GMT
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Chris StJohn (stjohn@poly.polytechnique.fr) wrote:
: In article <1993May25.183913.21862@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca>, jeremi@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca (William Jeremiah) writes:
: |> Bulent Murtezaoglu (mucit@cs.rochester.edu) wrote:
: |> 
: |> : A friend of mine is looking for a [possibly 2] cheap arm[s] possibly with
: |> : simple grippers for a Church activity.  The aim is hooking up the arm[s]
: |> : to a PC and having the kids enter stuff to the PC (co-ordinates maybe, 
: |> : nothing fancy) to make the arms move and do things.  If anyone knows where 
: |> : to find such beasts, and has ideas about getting kids interested in robotics 
: |> : through hands-on experience in general please contact
: |> 
: |> : Daniel Marcellus by e-mail at 76476.3603@compuserve.com.
: |> 
: |> : Thanks.
: |> 
: |> : -M
: |> :  
: |> 
: |> Ok.  I have what Radio Shack sold as the Armatron way back when.  And Radio
: |> Shack published an article on modifying it to work from a parallel port.
: |> 
: |> I'm not sure where you can get this Armatron anymore though.
: |> 
: |> Jerry
: |> --
: |> "Look ma! No .signature!"

: Wait a minute! I _bought_ one of those Armatrons, and upon getting it home I
: opened it up to find that it all worked off of 1 motor and a cunning set of
: springs and gears that connect the single motor to the various drive shafts.
: How do Radio Shack suggest you should modify it to work from a parallel port??
: (apart from buying 4 or 5 servo motors?)

Ooops!  Boy am I embarrased.  Did I say that?  <blush>

The article was published by _Radio Electronics_ and used six external DC
motors to replace the gearing inside.

Sorry for the confusion.

Jerry

: There was a book published in the UK sometime ago called "Build Your Own Robot"
: (or something along those lines - this was nearly 10 years ago!) that showed
: you how to construct a robot arm out of balsa wood and also gave the design for
: the controller card which hooks up to a PC or a BBC micro. The arm just had
: a gripper, an elbow and a shoulder I think. I was 13 at the time and it was a
: class project to build one. (forgive my failing memory as time goes past ;-)

:   ,--,             Chris StJohn, LIX, Ecole Polytechnique, 91128
:  /    /_  __' _    Palaiseau, Cedex, FRANCE. (+33) 1.69.33.45.93
: (____/ (_/ (_/_).
: ---------------    "Just because you're paranoid
:                    Don't mean they're not after you" -- Nirvana

--
"Look ma! No .signature!"
